This evening, as M and I sat working on our respective homeworks, a little bit of a kerfuffle erupted under the stairs. I looked over to see our youngest feline housemate frolicking with some sort of toy on the other side of the apartment. If the headline hasn't given it away already, Ophelia had an exceedingly zaftig mouse skooshed under her paws.
First point: The cat in question, Ophelia, is a super timid cat, and somewhat zaftig herself. She doesn't like strangers, she doesn't like change, and she sure as heck doesn't like exercise. If there is any high speed tromping about the house, Ophelia is usually responsible for the slightly slower, more labored, heavy pawed tromping, whereas Hope, the momma cat, is greased lightening, engaging in cat psychosis at maximum speed.
Second point: Ophelia isn't known for her killer instinct. We had a bit of an infestation of flies a while back and neither cat distinguished themselves as any sort of predator. Their favorite prey is stationary kibble in a dish, and if any kibble falls out of their gnashing maw, it is somehow rendered uncatchable, and must be left on the floor to taunt our fair cats at future meals.
So, when I saw Ophelia actually leaping about under the stairs like some sort of catnip-addled mini-bronco, I figured something was up. As I approached, I noticed a hairball sized lump under her paws. Hmm. Perhaps a hairball. We have no shortage of those. The lump had a tail. Perhaps it's a cat toy. The lump was wriggling. Perhaps it's time for me to run shrieking to the other side of the condo.
Naturally I didn't shriek, as that would be undignified, and might startle Ophelia into dropping the mouse. So I congratulated Ophelia's killer instinct in a nervous, quavering, high-pitched voice from the other side of the condo.
"Er. Margot, I think Oh-ee has a mouse."
As Margot came over to see what was happening, Ophelia decided that she was the center of too much attention, and how is a girl going to torture her snack with all this congressional oversight? She grabbed the mouse in her mouth and headed upstairs. Margot decided this would be a bad idea, as a dropped mouse has a chance of being caught again downstairs, whereas upstairs is a virtual Tora-Bora for little mousey terrorists. Ophelia made it up three steps and promptly dropped the mouse.
Foom! The mouse made a zaftig beeline for the dining area, with both cats in hot pursuit. At this point, I am on the other side of the divider wall from all the action. Ophelia, Hope, and Zaftig Q. Mouse are involved in some sort of high drama that involves cats leaping about, some rather strident squeaking (I continue to insist that the mouse was responsible for this, not I) and some possum playing (again, the mouse), a nose-to-nose stare-down, and the eventual procurement of a box, under which brave Margot eventually trapped the mouse that Hope and Oh decided was apparently not worth eating.
Since the mouse was lucky enough to infiltrate a household populated by liberals (the people) and socialists (the cats) we decided on a catch-and-release system of summary justice, and I was dispatched to the hinterlands of the condominiums commons to reintroduce this mouse to his/her skinnier brethren/sistren, and let the neighborhood mice democratically decide the fate of Stuart "Little."
Our heart rates have returned to normal, and the hockey sticks have been located, so any future mice can be wristed from the condo in a more satisfying, though assuredly less humane fashion. Have we learned anything from all this? Only that allegedly starving cats won't wolf down the only fresh meat they are likely to see this year, and a mouse the size of a small pizza doesn't have what it takes to disrupt the lives of freedom loving Americans, like Hope, Ophelia, Margot and I. That mouse may hate our liberty, but there is nothing that can keep us from taking the battle to the beagle next door. Set water pistols on stun! Victory!
